Autumn, my favorite season, has quickly turned into winter, my least favorite. And winter has brought the first cold of the season. I feel blech. I ignored the coming cold on Monday and Tuesday, putting the aches and restless nights down to… some other cause but definitely not a cold. Yesterday I could no longer ignore it and by 7:30 I knew that this little daily ritual called going to work wasn’t happenin’.

We had another terrific windstorm yesterday — one of those storms that makes me glad there are no big trees around my house. It wasn’t as wet as the last storm, but definitely as loud and rambunctious. I settled into my favorite chair with my favorite blanky, some chicken broth, tea, a good book and the cats, and watched a couple of old reruns on TV. I had just finished my tea-and-soup when the lights flickered. That sucks I thought to myself. The lights flickered again and then went off. I unraveled myself from my chair and went to turn off my computer. The lights came back on. I turned off the computer anyway and located a flashlight. The lights went back off and stayed off.

The veteran of numerous flaky-power-supply winters, I have the number of the power company close at hand. I called their automated power failure reporting line. This was the message:

There is a power failure in your area. 1525 homes are affected. We have received 123 calls. We do not know the cause. We expect to have power restored at approximately 5:30 pm.

OK. I can live with that. I dug out my hand-crank radio (my one purchase as a concession to the year-2000 madness) and tuned to a local station. Power outages were reported all over the city from downed trees, etc. It sounded like a mess outside. I started a fire in the fireplace (gas), lit a couple of candles, settled back in my chair and played a mindless game on my Palm. The battery ran out. I’d better go put it in the charger I thought… and then remember that would be a futile gesture. I started knitting on the class socks.

At 6:00 pm, I still had no power.

There is a power failure in your area. 4520 homes are affected. We have received 752 calls. The failure was caused by high winds. We expect to have power restored at approximately 7:00 pm.

By this time I was knitting with the flashlight balanced on my shoulder so I could see, because at 6:00 pm it’s dark. And when there’s no light anywhere in the neighborhood, it’s really dark. I was also feeling a bit hungry, having had nothing since the broth in the morning.

At 7:30 pm, there was no power.

There is a power failure in your area. 4520 homes are affected. We have received 1325 calls. The failure was caused by high winds. We expect to have power restored at approximately 9:00 pm.

Sigh I rummaged around the garage and found a second flashlight, just in case. I really wanted to go back to bed, but I’m chicken to leave a fire going if I’m not watching it and I wanted the heat from the fire. By this time it was pretty chilly back in the bedroom. I wrapped myself in my blanket in my favorite chair, ate a few crackers, resolved to buy more food that I could eat without cooking, and napped a bit.

Have you ever noticed how many thing you want to do require electricity?

I couldn’t cook anything. No microwave. No oven. No stove. I didn’t want to open the refrigerator because I wanted the food to stay as cold as possible, so no milk for cold cereal. No ice maker. No computer. No TV. No heat. No light. I’m not a back-to-the-land sort. I like my little luxuries. I did have the radio. But I had to crank it back up every 20 minutes or so.

The power company is just darned lucky that Lost is on hiatus, or I might have come gunning for them.

The radio, when I cranked it, reported that there was a new problem causing an outage in my area. At 9:30:

There is a power failure in your area. 4632 homes are affected. We have received 2532 calls. The failure was caused by high winds. We expect to have power restored at approximately 11:30 pm.

11:30? But I’m hungry, and I just felt too lousy to go out in the storm and find sustenance. I called the power company again and waited to speak to a live person, who assured me that they were doing everything that they could to restore my power but there were trees down everywhere and they really didn’t know how long it was going to take. 11:30 was just a vague estimate that would probably move to 1:00 am or so if they didn’t make it.

Great.

I took my flashlight and went back to my bedroom for a box of Kleenex. While there, I heard the furnace kick on. I looked out in the hall. Light. There was light! Light and heat and the TV and the microwave and the fridge and the stove and the computer. Oh frabjous day!

I’ve missed you I said to my power supply.

Now if I can just kick this darn cold!